Lazarus and Easter

I do not think I have ever though of Lazarus' connection to Easter Sunday.  I have not noticed before the overlap of Jesus healing him and soon after dining with him, and then going to Jerusalem for his impending death and resurrection.  My pastor pointed it out this week and while he preached I could not stop thinking about what that meant for Lazarus.  It got me thinking about his wretched humanity, and mine.

If it were me in Lazarus' place, I wonder how I would feel...

He steps out of the tomb in a sort of trance, alternately staring with wide eyes down at his linen wrapped arms, and hands, and at Jesus' face.  There are tears on the Messiah's cheeks--he is sure he is the Messiah now-- and a yearning look, a far away look yet very intimate.  It seems like the people standing around are statues, but then they begin to move, to breathe, to whisper.

"Won't he embrace Him, He who just brought him from the grave?"

He can't embrace, he can barely walk.  The look in Jesus' eyes is a little too knowing, and he begins to fumble with the wrappings.  One of the linen cloths chafes at a tender spot on his shoulder and as the wrappings move an odor comes from his own body that startles and disgusts him.  Clawing and tearing at the grave clothes he begins to seem frantic, and then the Messiah says,

"Take off the grave clothes and let him go." 

Soon he is being ushered to his sisters' home, bathed and fed and celebrated.  There is wine and food, wine mixed with the tears of family and friends, and as they celebrate around him he begins to feel uncomfortable, wondering why dying has made him so instantly adored.  Days pass, and still they gawk at Lazarus in the streets, whisper behind their mantle and constantly ask him to recount the tale. 

"What does it feel like to come to life?  Did it hurt?  What is there after death?"

There are so many questions, he does not have all the answers.  Often staying home is easier than answering this unasked-for celebrity.  "Why, LORD, why did you bring me back," Lazarus finally whispers to himself. 

Soon Passover is at hand.  Jesus is in town, and they dine together.  This year, as in every year since the the first lamb blood was painted on the doorposts, the people hope for redemption.  This will be the year their sons and all their future sons will be saved, and His boot will crush the Romans, and all enemies of the Jews, forever.  "Is this why you have me back," Lazarus wonders. 

While the women prepare the food the men hope, and flex, testing their strength with axe on woodpile and fists that pound on trees.  "Yes, Lord," Lazarus thinks, "I will be ready." 

Now Jesus is in Jerusalem and there is talk of a plot, not only on His life but on Lazarus' as well.  It seems futile, strange, and wrong, but then Jesus is in hiding, not sharing the Passover meal out in open but in an undisclosed attic somewhere.  Lazarus looks at his healing grave sores, he rubs his temples after an interrogation by the Pharisees, and wonders, "Why?"

His sisters had told him Jesus waited four days to come.  They told him they had cried and hoped and feared and then finally seen him in Bethany.  They had told him this as they tended to him, as they had comforted him when he told them of the terror, of the memory of waking up and stepping out of the grave.  "Why?"

Surely he was saved for battle.  Knowing Jesus to be the Messiah, knowing he came to Jerusalem to confront the Pharisees, the Romans, seeing him ushered in on palm fronds with shouting, Lazarus believes he knows his course.  "I am saved to fight, I am saved from the grave because he needs me." 

In Jesus' hour of need, however, Lazarus was not there.  As he walked the road to Golgotha it was not Lazarus who carried his cross.  The eyes that should have blazed with fire to destroy the Roman authority wept tears at their scourges.  The hands that should have wielded a sword against them were nailed to wood.  The mouth that should have told the Pharisees of his mightiness cried out in pain.   

Perhaps Lazarus feared battle, or perhaps he lusted for it.  Yet battling the Romans was not in store.  Jesus did not need Lazarus, and in Jesus' eyes as he hung on the cross Lazarus saw that same look he had seen when he exited the grave.  It was suddenly crystal clear. 

Jesus had saved Lazarus because he wanted Lazarus' company.  He wanted to dine with his friend before his death.  He loved him, very simply and very much.  

He didn't need him, He wanted him there.